One Step Too Far
is the seventeenth episode of the eighth season and the 165th overall episode of Grey's Anatomy. Short Summary Derek encourages a hesitant Meredith to work with him again in neurology; Jackson’s mother, Catherine Avery, returns to Seattle Grace with a urology fellow and develops an interest in Richard; and Cristina becomes increasingly suspicious of Owen’s every move. Meanwhile, Alex tries to deny the fact that Morgan may be falling for him. Full Summary Cristina is still suspicious of Owen, checking his cell phone and checking up on him at the hospital. She searches for him in the on-call rooms and finds him ... sleeping. She claims she's only there to bring him coffee, but she forgot it. As she's leaving, she sees the nurse. Derek and Meredith are sitting in the tub when Derek tries to convince her to come back to neuro. Webber is awoken in the lab by Dr. Avery -- Jackson's mom. She's impressed by the bladder Webber and his team created from stem cells. She goes off to look for her son. Alex is hanging out with his former intern, who is now the mother of a very premature baby who has a slight brain bleed that Alex is keeping an eye on. He gets a page from Arizona and they both leave to respond. At the hospital, Meredith talks to Cristina about how Derek put her (Meredith) on his service. Cristina is look for Owen so he can approve pulling the plug on a patient, and they both see Owen smiling with the nurse and sharing a bag of trail mix with her. Jackson tries to coach Sloan about how to successfully evade his mother. He wants Sloan to insist that Jackson has a lot of work to do. Soon, Dr. Mom Avery comes in and introduces her son to Dr. Mara Keaton, her star urology fellow. Mara is considering working at Seattle Grace next year and Mom Avery wants Jackson to show Mara around. Mom Avery asks Sloan if Jackson has time to show her around, and Sloan agrees, urging Jackson to take his time. Cristina is about to pull the plug on her patient and the man's partner consents. After the machines are turned off, he reconsiders and asks that the machines be turned back on. She agrees. Owen tells her to stay with the patient until his partner consents, angrily telling her to do her job and "find some damn compassion." The nurse is standing behind Owen and she offers to help because she's been working with the patient for a while. Cristina doesn't want her help, but Owen tells her to take the help if it's available. Derek is talking to a patient, who excitedly tells him about how she passed out in the middle of a big job interview. They're going to remove a cyst that's causing seizures. There is also a benign tumor that they aren't going to remove. Teddy tells Alex and Morgan about how her son, Tommy, needs heart surgery. Callie brings Arizona a pumpkin scone, which Arizona doesn't want, so Alex takes it and tells Morgan to eat it because she hasn't eaten anything. Alex and Morgan engage in some playful banter and Callie thinks they're "doin' it." Catherine Avery makes her bladder patient laugh until she pees (the patient, that is), and Webber assures her that lost of bladder control will end today -- when she gets her new bladder implanted. Catherine makes a crack about she likes to make sure everybody leads a full life once she's "done with them." She glances at Webber as she says this, and gives him a wink. In surgery, Derek is impressed with Lexie's "perfect craniotomy." Meredith is watching. Callie calls Derek over to an emergency and Derek leaves, asking Meredith to observe as Lexie finishes up the procedure. Avery is giving Mara the tour and she insists they stop to watch a surgery from the gallery. She asks Avery if he's dating anyone. She's got an impressive pedigree, and Avery says he gets it. He leaves. Something goes wrong with Tommy's surgery and Alex runs to get Derek. Lexie sees some blood on her patient's brain and Meredith tells her to "open her up" a little more. Cristina is talking to her patient's partner and she's giving him a very technical explanation of how his husband is already brain dead. He gets upset by this and asks her to explain to him how she can say his husband is already dead and also ask him to remove life-sustaining support. Nurse Emily jumps in and tells the man it's a difficult decision and he can take all the time he needs. Cristina leaves. Lexie handles the bleeder and realizes that she can see the benign tumor that Derek had told the patient they would not remove. She and Meredith discuss whether they should just take it out, and Meredith decides to wait until they can ask Derek. Derek is operating on the motorcycle accident victim when Alex comes in and urgently pulls Derek over to Tommy's surgery. Avery complains to Sloan about how his mom is trying to set him up with Mara. Sloan says he should go ahead and hook up with Mara -- especially since she's only in town for one night. Avery says he won't give his mother the satisfaction, and Sloan says it's not his mother he should be satisfying. Cristina goes into her patient's room and asks his husband if there are any questions she can answer. He angrily tells her no, and asks her to "stop circling like a vulture." She leaves. Nurse Emily asks Cristina if she wants her to talk to him. Emily talks about how Sam, the patient, was suddenly struck by a car so his husband is having a difficult time letting go. Cristina gets annoyed and asks Emily if she's married or ever has been. Emily says no and Cristina tells her she doesn't know what she's talking about so she should stay out of it. Meredith finds Derek and tells him the cyst removal went great. She also tells him Lexie took the tumor out, and he asks, "Why the hell would you do that?" Derek tells Meredith that the patient did not consent to the tumor removal. He says they won't know how the recovery has gone until she wakes up, then adds that he "should have known better." He tells Meredith she, too, should have known better. Catherine is operating on the bladder patent, and she and Webber flirt a little. Mara comes in and tells Catherine that she lost Avery. Catherine is upset and tells Mara she has a job to do. After Mara leaves, Catherine explains how much pressure it is to have the Avery name attached to her. She wishes she could go back and just be fun Catherine Fox. Webber tells her she's still fun, and she thanks him for noticing. Meredith finds Cristina for lunch in April's office, and they talk about their day while eating April's food. Alex shows up and Cristina asks him how long he's been screwing his intern, Morgan. Meredith thinks it's going to turn into the thing that happened with his patient Rebecca, who Cristina calls "smashed-up face." Meredith says, "she's going to fall for you, and then she's going to go crazy, and then she's going to pee on my couch." Alex leaves. April shows up and finds Cristina eating her turkey casserole. Avery shows up and tells April to stop Facebooking his mom, figuring that's how she knows he broke up with Lexie. April says she unfriended his mom, just like he asked. Mara shows up and April points out Avery, who has to resume his tour. Meredith asks Cristina about things with Owen and she claims "everything is fine." Avery tells Mara he's not interested. She's insulted. She's not a set-up, she's a spy. She's been sent to get information on Avery. Avery sees an opportunity. Derek and Meredith are waiting for their patient to wake up. Her parents show up and excitedly wait for their daughter to wake up. She does and her eyes are responsive. But when she tries to speak, only mumbled sounds come out and she's clearly confused and begins to panic. Derek explains to her parents that he made a mistake and with therapy their daughter might be able to regain her speaking functions. The mother is upset and says they're going to sue him. They leave to go back to their daughter and Meredith insists that Lexie will be crushed if she knows what happened. Derek says that if she can't handle it, she shouldn't be a surgeon. Derek walks away, and Lexie shows up and is excited to find out if the patient has woken up. Webber, Catherine and Bailey talk to their satisfied patient, whose bladder is already allowing her to laugh at Catherine's jokes without peeing. She gives Bailey a big hug. Webber and Catherine leave the room and Catherine says they are "quite a team." She asks Webber to come with her to the event she's attending that night. Webber hesitates at first, but then says he'd be honored to join her. Cristina finds Nurse Emily talking to the husband of the dying man. Cristina has had enough and tells the man that his husband would have been better off dying in the crash. She tells him that he's just as dead now as he would have been if he'd died immediately, and they would both at least have the comfort in knowing that he was gone. "This way, he's died in slow motion," she tells him. She admits she didn't know Sam, but he did, and she would imagine that Sam would want him to have the comfort of knowing he was really gone. The man asks her to bring him the papers. Avery and Mara are now laughing and commiserating about Catherine. He gives her tips on how to deal with Catherine. Meredith tells Lexie about the damage they caused to their patient's brain when they removed the tumor. Lexie says there has to be some way Derek can fix it. Lexie panics. She starts to cry, and Meredith tells her to go face Derek and take the anger he has to offer. She tells her she'll learn from it and she'll never make this mistake again. Morgan tells Alex that she and Tommy are lucky to have Alex as their doctor, and she teases him about how he's going to fail his boards and end up working at a bar. Callie sees this and after Morgan leaves she asks Alex if he and Morgan are a thing. She warns him to "be careful" because Morgan is smitten. Webber is getting his tux on, and Bailey sees him. She teases him about getting ready for his date. He insists he loves his wife. She tells him it's OK for him to give himself a break. She tells him he's a "good man." She says everyone in the hospital flirts, but "there's flirting for fun and there's flirting for profit. I know which kind you're doing." She's not so sure about Catherine. Cristina's patient is off support and his husband starts to cry. He sits next to his partner and tells him about this being the reason he was so scared to fall in love. Because he didn't want to have to imagine a life without him. Cristina is overcome by emotion and walks out into the hallway. Emily follows her and asks if she can do anything, and Cristina snaps around and asks, "Can you stop screwing my husband?" Emily chases Cristina down and tells her that she flirts with Owen, but she flirts with him. She flirts with everyone and it's just how she gets through a long shift. She says she switched to nights because of something having to do with her boyfriend. She offers to show her texts and any other proof that she's not hooking up with Owen, and says she would never. Cristina walks away. Meredith watches through a window for a moment while Derek yells at Lexie for the mistake she made. Avery and Mara show up, well dressed, and Avery tells Catherine that Mara has something to say. After a little coaxing from Avery, Mara tells Catherine that since she had her fly across the country to run a personal errand for her, she's going to take the night off and not go to the event. Avery and Mara leave, and Catherine -- somewhat impressed -- says she was going uninvite them anyway because she has a date. Morgan asks Callie to take a picture of her with her baby, and she asks Alex to get into the picture. Callie happily takes the shot, and shows Alex how Morgan has her arm around his and is resting her head on Alex's shoulder. Callie says Morgan is a "smitten kitten," and Alex looks a little nervous. Webber shows up and tells Catherine she looks lovely. Webber says he's going to have to stand her up. Catherine assures him his wife has nothing to worry about, and he goes on to tell her all about Adele's Alzheimer's. He says he doesn't trust himself going to dinner with her. Avery and Mara go to an on-call room to change out of their formal clothes, and she says she isn't really hungry. They hook up. At the end of the night, Derek is still upset and Meredith says this is why she can't go back to neuro. Owen gets home late to find Cristina awake. He doesn't "want to get into it" with Cristina, and she asks if he loves her at all. He says he loves her so much it hurts. She thinks that's a good start and they can fix things. Owen rephrases his previous statement, saying, "It hurts to love you." He stands up and tells Cristina he didn't cheat on her with Emily, but he did cheat on her. Cast Main Cast 817MeredithGrey.png|Meredith Grey 817CristinaYang.png|Cristina Yang 817AlexKarev.png|Alex Karev 817MirandaBailey.png|Miranda Bailey 817RichardWebber.png|Richard Webber 817CallieTorres.png|Callie Torres 817MarkSloan.png|Mark Sloan 817LexieGrey.png|Lexie Grey 817OwenHunt.png|Owen Hunt 817ArizonaRobbins.png|Arizona Robbins 817TeddyAltman.png|Teddy Altman 817AprilKepner.png|April Kepner 817JacksonAvery.png|Jackson Avery 817DerekShepherd.png|Derek Shepherd 817CatherineAvery.png|Catherine Avery 817EmilyKovach.png|Emily Kovach 817MorganPeterson.png|Morgan Peterson 817Sam.png|Sam 817MaraKeaton.png|Mara Keaton 817Irene.png|Irene 817LoriBosson.png|Lori 817Mr.Bosson.png|Mr. Bosson 817Mrs.Bosson.png|Mrs. Bosson 817Dr.Knox.png|Dr. Knox 817ORNurse.png|O.R. Nurse *Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey *Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang *Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev *Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey *James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber *Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres *Eric Dane as Dr. Mark Sloan *Chyler Leigh as Dr. Lexie Grey *Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt *Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins *Kim Raver as Dr. Teddy Altman *Sarah Drew as Dr. April Kepner *Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery *Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd Guest Stars *Debbie Allen as Dr. Catherine Avery *Summer Glau as Emily Kovach *Amanda Fuller as Dr. Morgan Peterson *James Avery as Sam *Rebecca Hazlewood as Dr. Mara Keaton Co-Starring *Ginny McMath as Irene *Chelsea Harris as Lori *Charles Emmett as Mr. Bosson *Rosalyn Sidewater as Mrs. Bosson *Payton Silver as Dr. Knox *Teresa Huang as O.R. Nurse Medical Notes Music Notes and Trivia thumb|300px|right *This episode's title originated from the song One Step Too Far, originally sung by Faithless. *This episode scored 9.62 million viewers. Gallery Episode Stills Onesteptoofar.jpg 8x17-1.png 8x17-2.png 8x17-3.png 8x17-4.png 8x17-5.png 8x17-6.png 8x17-7.png 8x17-8.png 8x17-9.png 8x17-10.png 8x17-11.png 8x17-12.png 8x17-13.png 8x17-14.png 8x17-15.png 8x17-16.png 8x17-17.png 8x17-18.jpg 8x17-19.jpg 8x17-20.jpg 8x17-21.jpg 8x17-22.jpg 8x17-23.jpg Behind the Scenes 8x17BTS1.jpg 8x17BTS2.jpg Quotes Category:All Episodes Category:GA S8 Episodes Category:GA Episodes